Unexpected Pleasures
by thezombiecoma
Summary: Seattle SVU meets New York SVU... on a bicoastal killer case. Will John Munch get over his bias in time to catch the killer?


"Okay, folks, what we have here is a-"

"Excuse me?"

Don Cragen turned to look at the intruder, annoyed. Why did people just think that they could walk into his squadroom whenever they felt like it?

"Yes?" His tone gave an indication of his annoyance. He'd been busy trying to explain the finer points of an M.O. and this... girl walks in and starts talking? She didn't belong there, she looked no more than 17. She was dressed in jeans and an blue sweatshirt with 'Oxford' written across in standard collegiate lettering. Her brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail and the worlds smallest pair of reading glasses were perched on her nose.

"Elizabeth Hawkins," she said clearly, as if that explained everything, and apparently to Cragen it did. He wiped the exasperated look off his face immediately. In fact, he had a hint of a smile.

"Of course!" Cragen walked away from his people, who stood there with a slack jaw. "Right this way, Doctor Hawkins," he said, ushering her into his office and closing the door. His four best detectives didn't say anything at first. Olivia broke the silence.

"Doctor?" She turned her head, incredulous, to look at her friends. Elliot, Fin and Munch all looked at her with matching expressions.

"If that cheerleader is a doctor, then I'm the lone gunman," Munch said. For once, no one made a crack about his famous conspiracy theories. They stood there in silence, listening with confusion at the laughter that was coming out of Cragen's office. Laughter?

After nearly ten minutes of fairly loud banter, the door opened again, and the pretty young girl emerged with a smile. Catching sight of the detectives, she cleared her face of expression, and gave Cragen a formal, "Thank you," before striding across the room to stand by the other four. Cragen, suprisingly enough, shut himself back in his office.

"So." She looked at them all, then took a deep breath. They looked like they were going to be a tough audience. "What we have here is a perp who enjoys overpowering women, probably because he doesn't look like he can. If you see here," she continued, lifting a pen pointer at the board, pointing to a photo of woman who had quite obviously met a grisly end, "it is obvious, even to the naked eye-"

"Who are you?" The blunt question came from-

"Elliot Stabler, correct?" She was, and she knew it. He knew she knew it and frowned. She obliged. "Elizabeth Hawkins, a detective with Seattle Special Victims." She turned back to the board, pointing with her pen again, picking up where she'd left off without missing a beat, "that the perp used his left hand to make the cuts on her breasts, but his right to cut here, across her throat." She made the last motion with the pen, drawing it from left to right across the photograph.

"Captain Cragen called you doctor?" Olivia spoke up. Elizabeth Hawkins turned to her.

"Yes, that's right. Now, if you see here, the gouges in the skin above her breasts and in her neck," she continued before being interrupted again.

"Doctor of what exactly?" This came from the tall, graying man with sunglasses. She furrowed her brow.

"Are you wearing sunglasses inside?" She looked out the window. "On a rainy day?" When she quirked one eyebrow at him, she looked even younger. Like a petulant teenager who was questioning authority. John Munch certainly saw her that way.

"Doctor of _what_?" He repeated just as she turned her back on him to finish her brief. Slowly, very slowly, she turned around again. She stared hard at him, not intimidated in the least by an old man who was clearly well past retirement age.

"Detective Munch," she said, using his name without actually being told what it was. "I graduated highschool at thirteen. I recieved my first doctorate in art history at 16. By the time I was 21, I'd finished parallel courses in bioinformatics with a focus on forensic anthropology and psychiatry, again recieving doctorates." She noted their shocked faces and went for her personal coup de tat. "And to become a detective in Seattle, I finished my law degree in two years instead of three and spent a year at Oxford receiving my Magister Juris from them at twenty-four, which allows me to practice law in more than thirteen different countries across Europe, two in Asia and this one." She spoke very fast and very quietly, causing the core group of detectives, plus the ones in the nearby vicinity who'd been eavesdropping, to lean in to hear her. "I enjoyed school. Eventually, though, you have to grow up." She shrugged. "So here I am."

Elizabeth knew it sounded pretentious, but the truth was, she'd worked hard in school, had forgone having a life because of what she loved, which was studying. She didn't have to work, but chose to. She had many fields of work to choose from and had chosen special victims for a reason that no one needed to know but herself.

"You don't look a day over..." Elliot stopped, and added to the age he'd been thinking of. "Twenty one."

"I'm twenty-eight and I've worked hard to be where I am now," she said sternly, making her displeasure clear. "Now, if you don't mind," she said turning back to the board. "The perpetrator obviously bit his victims, probably to cause them more pain, but realized he could be identi-"

"What?" They were still looking at her and not the board in front of them.

"You have four doctorates?" Olivia sounded a little stunned.

"Four? Five." She counted back. "Oh! I also acheived a doctorate in English, with a specialty in fantasy literature." She smiled. Now that had been fun. "Can we continue?"

Without really waiting for an answer, she turned back to board. "He realized he could be identified through his dental records, therefore he must have a _police _record. I need you to get everything you have on victims of any domestic crimes in the last three months. This guy has to be in relationships. He's abusive anyway."

"Why only three months?" Fin asked from where he'd been perched on the edge of his desk, the full length, thigh-high cast he had a stark contrast to the dark sweats he wore.

"Odafin Tutuola, I'm guessing. I'm sorry to hear about your run-in with the Subway Slasher. Your work on that case was exemplary." She nodded once in his direction, flashing him a smile.

"Well, who knew he carried the cane?" He returned, a smile on his own face. She answered his question.

"Only three months, because three months and a week ago, he was in Seattle." Suddenly, her presence was explained. "I think he's a bicoastal killer and I want him stopped. Because this originated in Seattle, this is still my case." She eyed the three mobile detectives and turned at the sound of Captain Cragen's office door opening behind her. She smiled. "Don, I think this'll work. I'll take Detective Munch."

Cragen nodded, while Munch stood there, for once in his life at a loss. "Wait, Captain-" He was cut off.

"Sorry, John. But you and Detective Hawkins are in this together. Elliot, Olivia, start with pulling the files that match the perp's M.O." He saw Munch just staring. "John, let's go."

Professionalism won over and he grabbed his signature long black coat from the back of his chair. "Okay, Doctor... Detective... which do you prefer?" She grinned at him.

"Elizabeth." And she turned and walked out, calling over her shoulder. "I'm driving."

She eased her rental car into traffic carefully, feeling a little boxed in. "Traffic here is miserable," she said, peering over her shoulder as she changed lanes. "I've never even been to New York," she continued when her partner didn't answer. "Well, I flew through once when I was on my way to London."

Finally where she wanted to be in relation to the rest of New York's driving population, she settled back in the seat. She reached over and flipped on the radio. Britney Spears came blaring out, and Elizabeth sang along for a verse before looking to the side and catching Munch's horrified expression.

"What? Your radio stations are worse than your traffic," she explained half heartedly before resuming her badly done rendition of 'Baby, One More Time'.

Munch spent the next thirty seconds gritting his teeth before silently reaching over and changing the car station to an opera. "Classical. Dignified," he said pointedly looking at her.

"Dignified? You don't know me very well, Detective Munch." She listened for a moment, aware that he was watching her to see if she'd change it back. _Not a chance,_ she thought. Once he'd turned back to the road, she began singing again, her voice much more suited to the sound now floating out of the speakers. She felt, rather than saw, his head snap back to look at her again. "La voila...L'amour est oiseau rebelle," it was softer and more melodious than Britney.

"Classical. Dignified." She turned her gaze to him and said as she pulled the car to a stop at a red light, "My father would have agreed with you. Carmen is one of his favorites and that aria? One of the easiest." The light changed and she pulled forward.

"I'm not difficult to work with, Detective. I promise." He didn't answer and she hadn't really expected he would. They passed the final mile in silence.

As she pulled up to the curb at their destination, she said, "I'm going to let you handle this one, NYPD and all." She grinned at him and bounced out of the car, ponytail swinging behind her. He sighed and got out of the car, noting the contrast between his dark suit and her jeans and sweatshirt. He couldn't believe that THEY had sunk so low as to force him to babysit a... girl. She was less than half his age, dressed like a co-ed and... was smarter than any woman he'd ever met.


End file.
